Oculus released a software update to its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset this week that blocks the use of Revive, a third-party app that allowed for the porting of exclusive Rift VR titles to the rival HTC Vive headset.

The third-party app was launched in April. After its release, one of Revive's developers "CrossVR", posted on Reddit that the software update for the Rift that was released on Friday now includes a new check to see if the headset is connected to the Oculus Platform DRM. That addition means the Revive app will no longer work.

It's currently unknown if the Revive developers will try to release an update to work around this new Rift addition.

Update: The developers of Revive have now released a new update that offers a partial workaround for the Rift DRM for Unreal engine games only.

As someone who works in game development, this leaves such a sour taste in my mouth...

I, along with several other developers which use UE4, have already decided to drop support for the Oculus Rift in our current projects as a result of this.

Of course, this type of decision most likely won't be sympathized by larger studios, sadly. However, any indie developers should attempt to do the same.

The video game industry is fragmented enough as it is, and with VR being one of the increasingly scarce "game-changers" to drop into the consumer landscape throughout the past several years and finally maturing to the point that VR actually is a viable interface for gameplay, this kind of action on part of Oculus is unacceptable...

Their claim for protecting their own content from piracy is not just ridiculous, but inaccurate as well. The content on their store must still be purchased to be used with the HTC Vive, in the case where someone does actually pirate an Oculus game, it's going to occur regardless of the measures taken. Most, if not all, developers are well aware of how incredibly tenacious the coders that crack games are. The ONLY anti-crack method that has been able to last more than a week is Denuvo, and even Denuvo's ability to resist cracking varies erratically on a game-by-game basis.

Hopefully, this will blow up in Zuckerberg's face and force him to rescind this terrible decision. (Just like what happened when Microsoft came to its senses after the tsunami of backlash that erupted when Microsoft announced the slew of strict, absurd, and just bizarre conditions for the XBOX One when it was first officially announced.)

I have a gut feeling that Andrew Reisse is rolling in his grave right now because of his legacy being shamed by some Facebook Execs who obviously have no clue how serious the gaming community is, especially so when compared to Facebook's casual user base. I'm hoping that they soon get a rude awakening and realize that they can't get away with these ridiculous anti-competitive actions with gamers/game developers like they can with Facebook users.

Indie devs, which comprise the vast majority of those behind VR content, develop apps and games using a variety of methods, aside from the official SDK, which is used for only a very small portion of the content made for the rift, none of the tools used to make the content have no contribution whatsoever from Oculus, monetary or otherwise.

Most VR games are made in Unity, or UE4. Which sport their own means of integrating Oculus support, these methods are developed in-house.

Also, this is not just an issue for people buying the content, but for the content creators as well. The Oculus Rift was announced 2+ years prior to the HTC Vive, and with early dev kits being made available not too long after the successful Kickstarter campaign, there was a considerable time gap between actual content creation for the Oculus Rift, and the announcement of the Vive.

A considerable amount of VR content was finished and released into Oculus' store before any of us knew the Vive existed.

I've spoken with numerous indie devs that have crafted content for VR and when the Vive was announced, a decent number of them wish they knew that such a device was just beyond the horizon, but the thought of going back to reintegrate support for the Vive seemed too daunting, considering most had moved on to other projects by that time.

So when word spread of tools like ReVive, a lot of them were delighted because someone had done them a huge favor and added support for the Vive.

However, as a result of Oculus' anti-competitive attitude, many early VR content creators a left with a Catch-22 ultimatum: Go back and spend a good deal of time creating a Vive-specific version of their content, or begrudgingly accept a sales decrease as a result.

Perhaps, it would be wise to, at the very least, put some actual thought into your claim next time, instead of attempting to invalidate the completely legitimate objections of others. Especially so, when said attempt is based on a completely inaccurate assumption. Of course, it's just a suggestion. (:

I dunno. There are games made exclusively for Xbox that aren't available on PlayStation and vice-versa. If you want a particular game, you'll buy the necessary console.

I don't see a problem with headset-exclusive games, ether. If a game manufacturer focused solely on one headset, that game can quite possibly become something great. But, if they start messing with that game in order for it to work on different platforms, it might just lose something in the process.

You have a valid point, Johnny. The confusion is certainly understandable.

The main difference between XBOX/Playstation specific titles and content that is made foe Oculus is that what Oculus is doing will actually harm the developers that have crafted the content for their hardware, which is not the case with what Sony and Microsoft do for platform-specific games.

With content that is specific to a certain console, Sony/Microsoft typically uses several approaches. The first is that the game is developed entire in-house. The second is similar, in a studio that Sony or Microsoft owns/buys out, the respective parent company will assign them their development projects. The third is that Sony/Microsoft will commission or offer some kind of deal/incentive to an external studio for making a title that is specific to the company's platform. Usually this is some combination of payment, greater ability to advertise/market the title, development tools, resources, and additional developers/engineers from studios owned by Sony or Microsoft. Examples of this are games like Bloodborne by FROM Software and Quantum Break by Remedy Entertainment.

Oculus, on the other hand, does none of these things. Their means of providing content to users is far more akin to the IOS App store and Google Play. Wherein anyone can contribute content and the respective service provider (Apple, Google, Valve, and in this case, Oculus.) gets a cut of the resulting profits.

Doing what Oculus has done will lower sales. And even if the decline is marginal, it still will impact many indie devs who need every cent they can get.

Valve doesn't care which headset you use. Anyone is free to tap into the SteamVR framework. You can use the rift, the vive, the osvr or whatever homebrew VR solution you want. Their money comes primarily from you buying games through Steam so they have no reasons to limit their audience buy limiting the hardware they can use.

I don't have a problem with this. I know we'd all like software to be open source and available for all, but if Oculus paid these developers to create exclusive (or timed exclusive in EVE Valkyrie's case) content, it's in their right to block their competitors from getting unlicensed access to it. HTC and Valve didn't invest any capital in those games' development.

Likewise, if somebody made a mod allowing Valve's The Room or Hover Junkers to work on the Rift, I wouldn't fault Valve for reinforcing their DRM.

Kinda hard to win this game when HTC and Valve have made getting their solution to be the VR standard (thus also ensuring licensing fees for the foreseeable future) their top priority. DRM isn't the answer, and just shows their solution may have been first, but isn't what's preferred.